Amidst the typical campus controversy, personal hardships and academic stresses, I have always been able to find solace in Dartmouth not as an institution, but as a physical place. It's beautiful here if you've spent any amount of time strolling through the old graveyard, up to the Robert Frost statue or down to the river, you know that. It's the kind of beauty that inspired Thoreau, Emerson, Frost and hopefully every student or visitor that has stepped foot here, and it's the kind of beauty that makes Dartmouth ideally suited for continuing to be a muse for the writers of the future.
In a recent interview with The Dartmouth opinion staff, College President Jim Yong Kim brought up the notion of a creating a Masters program in creative writing a two-year Dartmouth writers' workshop that I believe will draw the attention and support of the students, professors and alumni of Dartmouth, for good reason.
Kim prefaced his idea by making a comparison between a potential Dartmouth program and the already esteemed Writer's Workshop at the University of Iowa. At the risk of being a bit blunt, if it exists there, why not here? Dartmouth, New Hampshire and New England overall have unparalleled beauty, a strong literary tradition and the resources to create a unique and powerful writing program to encourage and develop future generations of writers. Perched within the White Mountains and surrounded by some of the greatest contemporary writers of our time, we are ideally suited to create a truly original and beneficial program.
In a short e-mail exchange with creative writing professor Ernest Hebert on the subject, he too praised the concept. It is, as he wrote, "an idea whose time has come." He wrote that he believes that "Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have coalesced into a literary region" and that "Dartmouth is smack dab in the middle" of it. Citing authors such as Stephen King, Jodi Picoult and John Irving as well as poets Donald Hall and Wesley McNair, all of whom live or work nearby, Hebert posits that "with a strong graduate program in creative writing, Dartmouth would develop as the intellectual and social center of this vibrant, literary region."
I wholeheartedly support Kim's desire to help Dartmouth become a leader in research on global health and health care delivery at both the graduate and undergraduate level. As a creative writing major, however, I strongly believe, as many others do, that as we move forward with Kim in expanding the reach of the sciences, we also need to push to ensure that Dartmouth has room to grow and develop as a true liberal arts institution. A writers' workshop would work towards this aim by not only increasing the esteem and respect Dartmouth holds, but by greatly contributing towards the undergraduate experience.
The College would be able to draw great authors and poets from across the world to speak and interact with students on campus as well as maintain a connection with next generation of writers that will have been educated and inspired here at Dartmouth. As the Hopkins Center has drawn in world-renowned actors and artists to give talks and run workshops open to undergraduates, so too would a writers' workshop contribute to the undergraduate education.
While Kim has stated that he doesn't have many fully formed ideas on the topic, he seems interested. What would a Dartmouth writers' workshop look like? I don't really know either. But let's start talking about it. As we move forward out of the financial hardships the College has endured the past year, I would call on interested students, faculty and alumni to make their voices heard, express interest to the administration and work to ensure that Dartmouth continues to be a leader not only in the hard sciences, but the arts as well.
The picturesque beauty of our campus, in addition to the strong literary tradition of New England, makes Dartmouth a perfect setting for a writers' workshop. We are ideally suited to provide something unique to aspiring writers of all ages from across the world. Maybe it is difficult to care as an undergraduate whether or not such a program exists, but the benefits in terms of a fuller undergraduate experience, increased prestige for the College and a boon for the arts in general are hard to deny.
And if we can make it happen in the next two years, I know I would be the first to apply.
